Looking Forward: Rhonda Copelon's Legacy in Action and the Future of International Women's Human Rights Law

On March 30, 2012, a packed auditorium of human rights advocates, lawyers, students, and others gathered at the CUNY Graduate Center for the CUNY Law Review Symposium, "Looking Forward: Rhonda Copelon's Legacy in Action and the Future of International Women's Human Rights Law." The symposium brought together leading scholars and activists from around the world to honor Rhonda Copelon and to share and learn about current extensions of her groundbreaking work.

The day-long event looked at how Copelon's work helped to define and shape the field of international women's human rights and described how her vision continues to influence and inspire advocates and practitioners. The panels focused on areas of work where Copelon made a significant impact: sexual rights developments under international law, reproductive rights at home and abroad, rape as a form of torture, and domestic implementation of international human rights law. Panelists and speakers discussed how Copelon influenced them personally and professionally and reflected on how her vision, tenacity, and commitment to gender justice help to shape their responses to the challenges they face today. As the speakers described their approach to building human rights protections for gender rights, they invoked Copelon's lesson that the role of advocates is not to argue what the law is, but rather what the law should be. CUNY School of Law Dean Michelle J. Anderson delivered the welcome remarks for the afternoon sessions.

Penelope Andrews, Associate Dean and Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law

Caitlin Borgmann, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law

Julie Goldscheid, Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law

Ruthann Robson, Distinguished Professor of Law, CUNY School of Law

The City University of New York Law Review is edited and published by the students of the City University of New York School of Law. The Law Review is dedicated to social justice legal scholarship. It aims to inform the legal community of recent developments in public interest law and to provide a forum for practitioners whose clients might otherwise lack meaningful representation in the legal system.

Copelon was a founding faculty member of CUNY School of Law, a co-founder of CUNY Law's International Women's Human Rights (IWHR) Clinic, a human rights attorney, and a vice-president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). She built on early pioneering work in the reproductive rights movement and broke new ground opening U.S. federal courts to international human rights violations and international tribunals to gender-based violence. She helped lay the conceptual foundation for some of today's most influential case law in the field of women's international human rights. She passed away in 2010 at age 65, leaving an astounding body of work.

The symposium was organized in conjunction with the IWHR Clinic and was co-sponsored by MADRE and the Center for Constitutional Rights. Volume 15.2 of the CUNY Law Review will be dedicated to the symposium and will be published in fall 2012.